. /.  RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG2/M/5 
7 February 2006 
 
 (06-0497) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Forty-First Session  
 
 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE EUROPE AGREEMENT  BETWEEN 
THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND ROMANIA, SERVICES 
 
Note on the Meeting of 23 January 2006  
 
Chairman: Mr. R. Saborío (Costa Rica) 
 
1. The meeting was convened in document WTO/AIR/2734. 
2. Under Agenda Item C.III of its 41st Session, the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
(hereinafter CRTA or the Committee) took up the third round of examination of the services aspects 
of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and Romania.   
3. The Chairman  noted that the proceedings of the firs t and second rounds of examination of the 
services aspects of the Europe Agreement betw een the European Communities and Romania 
(hereinafter the Agreement), which had taken place in November 2002 and March 2004, had been 
distributed in documents WT/REG2/M/3 and WT/REG 2/M/4 respectively.  Since then, the Parties 
had provided replies to questions put by delega tions, which had been circulated in documents 
WT/REG2/8 and WT/REG2/9.  Given the advanced st age of the examination, he asked delegations 
wishing to comment or ask questions on the Agre ement to identify the relevant section of the 
Standard Format contained in document WT/REG2/6. 
4. The representative of the United States  asked, under Section I of the Standard Format 
("Background Information on the Agreement"), whet her the Parties could simplify the reply provided 
to a previous question about services trade liberalizati on since the entry into force of the Agreement.  
The response provided gave just a reference to th e EC's website, leading to a large and confusing 
amount of documents.  Therefore, she asked whether the Parties could provide a simple description of 
the changes in the liberalization process that had been undertaken since the Agreement was put into 
force.  Her delegation was seeking to get an answer  to a question that had been put a few years ago 
and could work bilaterally to clarify the question,  in the case it was not sufficiently clear.  The 
representative of the European Communities  expressed surprise that the United States did not consider 
the question to be sufficiently answered because the websites her delegati on had provided contained 
all the necessary information.  If the problem was that the United States could not find the information 
they wanted in the websites, that  could be discussed bilaterally.  Sh e added that her delegation would 
do its best to see whether they could print the releva nt information.  The representative of the United 
States  clarified that she was not seeking for help in the printing of documents and, pointing out that 
transparency in the international trading system required more than just a website, she said that her 
delegation did not consider it to be  an appropriate way of providing an answer.  The purpose of this 
Committee was to help others understand what was a web of information, and they were doing the 
same thing in other Committees across the WTO.  At  the same time, the question posed was simple 
enough for EC experts not to be confronted with any problem to provide an answer, although they 
could work together to clarify the issue.  She hoped this did not become a problem so that they could finish the factual review as soon as possible. WT/REG2/M/5 
Page 2  
 
  5. The Chairman
 recommended the delegations of the United States and the European 
Communities to get in contact and proposed that , given the remaining open point, the Committee 
would wait feedback from both sides before deciding wh ether there was a need to continue the factual 
examination of the Agreement.  He also invited th ose delegations which wished to ask questions to 
forward them in writing to the Secretariat by 17 Febr uary and the Parties to submit replies in writing 
by not later than 10 March.  It was so agreed . 
6. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
__________